Île St-Louis

Île St-Louis : Michelin's recommendations

How to put into words the peaceful charm of this unique island? A waterfront where it is pleasant to wander under the facades of the noble classical mansions which was the haunt of numerous artists and aesthetes such as Baudelaire, Théophile Gautier, Camille Claudel, and more recently s Michèle Morgan, Georges Moustaki and the former President of the Republic, Georges Pompidou. A narrow street where craftsmen, paint-shops and trade of all kinds have succeeded art galleries. There are numerous restaurants and a number of mansions of great charm. SeventeenC houses, hidden away in the side streets, with their facades of noble proportions, their wrought iron balconies, their tall brick chimneys, an arch straddling the rue de Bretonvilliers. The silence and calm of the weekdays in contrast to the crowds on sunny weekends. And an ice cream parlour that lures all of Paris but which remains imperturbably shut when the streets are full on Sundays! Rather than a village, île Saint-Louis is a state of mind, a different world and the status of islander is only won little by little: you have to deserve it.